


To the End

by ryanmustdie



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Gen, M/M, Patient!Frank, Therapist!Gerard, This Is Sad, Trigger warning for suicide, not exactly graphic but it’s still there, who is about to give me asotm and taoaf status on this one shot lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:35:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29065176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryanmustdie/pseuds/ryanmustdie
Summary: The point is, Frank is sick and tired of seeing new people who claim they will help him when they don’t even try.
Relationships: Frank Iero/Gerard Way
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	To the End

**Author's Note:**

> please read with caution if mental health mentions and suicide mentions will trigger you, and please do not read if it will cause you harm. i want you guys to be okay and remain happy and healthy. i love you all so much and thank you for reading if you do <3

Frank pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, wishing desperately for the day to be over already. 

Ever since he’d opened his stupid little mouth to Ray six months back, nothing had been the same. 

He went to Ray seeking some kind of refuge, hoping that the older boy could be like a lifeline for Frank. All he’d caused for himself were more problems. 

“I just don’t see that bright future that everyone always talks about.” Frank had said on the February afternoon, the day before he was due to take his formal senior pictures. 

Instead of giving him care and attention like Frank had expected, Ray just seemed concerned. The next day, he found himself being referred to a therapist office in a haze of cards with phone numbers on them and tears he didn’t recall shedding. 

It’d been six long and gruesome months and in that time, Frank had gone through upwards of seven therapists, all claiming he was too difficult to work with. 

Which, what the fuck? How is a therapist of all things going to say someone is too hard to work with so they won’t help them? 

The point is, Frank is sick and tired of seeing new people who claim they will help him when they don’t even try. The therapist next up in line is one who goes by Mr. Way. Jazmine, the lady who worked the desk at the last office he went to and who’d referred him to Mr. Way told Frank that he was a brand new therapist who had just gotten into his own office fresh out of school and that Frank would be his first patient. 

Nothing about this was particularly exciting, especially less so when he opened the door and saw a waiting room full of neutral colors and fake potted plants. The only thing going for the place was the paintings lining the walls. 

He sauntered up to the desk, shoulders hunkered under his jacket and a beanie pulled down over his ears. October was cold in Jersey and Frank couldn’t afford to go and get sick for the third time in as many weeks. 

“Hi, I’m here to see Mr. Way.” Frank spoke quietly as if all the paintings would fall off the walls and shatter if he raised his voice any louder. 

“Frank, is it?” The lady behind the computer asked and if Frank had any opinion about her thus far it would be that Jazmine had much better style than her. 

“Yes, ma’am.” Because if there was anything he’d been taught in his life at all, it was that manners were always superior even when the person being spoken to wore their hair in a complicated do and wore a red flannel with a solid red t-shirt under it.

“Have a seat, he will be out here to grab you in a moment.” She smiled and he returned because, once again, manners. 

Frank sat directly under the largest painting in the whole waiting room and, he wouldn’t know it now but that would be some form of metaphor for his ego and sense of self. Crowding himself under the largest thing around him to seem important, bigger than he was. 

“Frank?” A small, nasally voice spoke from the doorway next to the desk. 

He stood, adjusting his beanie and walking towards the door, examining this character as his feet shuffled. 

He was average height and average build. He had shoulder length black hair and wore a black suit with a striped gray and black tie. The man seemed to either be with the secret service or be a large nerd. Frank would put his money on the latter.

He followed him through the corridors and into a confined and stuffy office. This seemed to be the most enthusiastic spot in the place. There was some form of color covering every inch of the room and god Frank felt like he’d found his spot in the world. He didn’t even mind the other person who was currently sharing that spot with him. 

“Frank?” He heard, jolting him out of the daze he’d dug himself down into.

“Sorry I just really like the decorations.” Frank smiled, sitting down in the comfy looking chair across from the desk. “You’re Mr. Way?” 

The man smiled. “Indeed. But please, by all means, call me Gerard. I want you to be as comfortable as possible with me.”

Hands down, Frank already loved this place even if the girl at the front desk was a total dweeb when it came to fashion and despite the fact that the only room with which decorating expertise seemed to be taken is the one he was currently in. 

“Do you care to tell me a little bit about yourself?” Gerard asked, grabbing a pen and opening a seemingly brand new notebook.

So he rambled about anything that came to mind and he watched Gerard write it all down. At one point, he asked about the handy dandy little notebook and Gerard grinned, rubbing his hand along the page before sitting his pen down. 

“When I get more patients, I plan on having individual notebooks for each of them and I’ll write everything in it. When I feel like they can stop seeing me and continue on, I’ll let them have it to read through when they feel like nothing is going great.” 

Frank smiled and nodded before Gerard asked to be excused for a moment. He forgot his calendar in one of the other rooms.

When Gerard walked out, Frank looked at the notebook, reading what Gerard had written.

_ -“Adores” decorations in my office, likes my paintings in the waiting room. _

_ -Misfits :) _

_ -Horror movies! _

He skipped down a little bit, seeing a larger body of text, interest shifting.

_ -Says he feels like “no one can see or hear or touch” him. Like he's living a “pseudo reality” and all he wants is for “someone to reach out and grab” him or else he feels like he’s “going to float away.” _

That sure is odd because Frank remembered uttering not one word of that. He supposed he’d let his tongue go unsupervised. It was okay though. He hadn’t ever felt okay about spilling his guts to someone but somehow he wasn’t enraged. Something about the artsy man.

He sat down before he got caught, Gerard walking in just moments later, large calendar in tow.

“Does the same day and time next week work for you?” He asked after sitting down, situating the calendar on his desk. 

“Yes. I’m free pretty much whenever since graduation. Nothing really for me to do.” Frank chuckled, adjusting his beanie again.

“Alright well I will see you next week and if anything goes wrong and you don’t feel okay,” he paused, slipping Frank a piece of paper that looked like it’d been ripped from a piece he took out of the printer. “call me. Doesn’t matter what time or anything just, please let me know.” 

Frank nodded and smiled, looking down at his feet before looking back up at Gerard through his lashes and walking out. 

\---

Five months with the same routine would’ve made Frank in high school want to bash his head against a locker.

Somehow, this new routine was working out perfectly. Wait all week for therapy, see Gerard and maybe talk about things that make him upset, schedule a new appointment, wait another week for therapy.

Gerard had gotten four other notebooks for him already. That meant something didn’t it?

Frank had sat down in front of his bathroom mirror at the mark of the third month and had a serious discussion with himself on the basis of his therapist and what all these thoughts he’d been having entailed. 

Thoughts like “you wouldn’t have to hide some of the things you want to say if you guys were together” and “maybe he would trust you to tell you his things if you were dating.”

So he was going to bring it up at the week’s session. 

“Hi, I have a lot to tell you.” Frank smiled as he sat down in the chair, putting his legs under himself.

“I have a lot to tell you as well.” Gerard returned the smile, grabbing the notebook and pen. “But by all means, you go first.”

“No no, you go first!” Frank wanted to save his for after because it was the most important thing he would ever say in therapy.

“Okay, well, I think I can safely and confidently let you stop seeing me.” Gerard’s smile grew wider, hands clasping together and resting on his chin. 

Frank didn’t know which he wanted to more; sink down into the chair and sob for eternity or stand up, push over every piece of furniture in the building and escape to the roof to jump. 

“You don’t seem happy.” Gerard sat forward, concern visible in his eyes.

He was Frank’s favorite person. He had to know that he was. Frank would have walked to the ends of the earth with no breaks, no water, and nothing to stop him from being torn to shreds by the elements for him. 

Frank had ripped himself open to Gerard to try and let him know he wanted to care for Gerard the same way Gerard was caring for him. Bled himself dry and injected the blood into Gerard’s veins, all hopeless words and breathless tears. Gerard got to know every piece of him whether Frank wanted him to or not and he didn’t know whether to be angry or sad about the fact that Frank’s everything still wasn’t enough. 

“I’m not. Don’t expect me to be.” He spoke quietly, staring at the floor and scraping at the skin on his wrist.

“Wha- can you please tell me what is going on?” Gerard asked, beginning to bite on his thumb nail. 

“You want to know what I was going to tell you? I was going to tell you that over the course of these months, I have bore my entire being to you and you have helped me tremendously and I fell for that. I should have known it’d be a stretch to try and say these things and I guess I shouldn’t have waited this long. I’m in love with you, Gerard and this is the only time I can see you.”

“Frank I- I don’t know what to say. I mean, you have to know that there is obviously some sort of feeling there from me to you but it isn’t that advanced. I can’t say that I love you.”

Frank was waiting for a ‘yet’ that never came. 

He walked out of the office and didn’t spare a single glance back. 

\---

Frank sat on the bathroom floor in the same spot he’d had his discussion with himself so many months back. It had officially been two months since he’d walked away from Gerard’s office and he struggled every day not to pick up the phone. Which was what he was failing to do right now.

It was ringing against his ear and he was shaking, looking into the hallway where the rope was hanging from the railing of the stairs like an icicle off the gutter.

“Hello?” 

“Hi, Gerard.” Frank smiled, a rush going through his body at Gerard’s voice. 

“Frank? Are you okay?” Gerard sounded concerned and then there was some rustling in the background. 

“Glad that you can still sense when I’m not. You know, by the way, I never got those notebooks. The ones that were supposed to help out when things just weren’t going so well?” Frank chuckled, standing. 

He was a bit uneasy on his feet, having to grab the sink to steady himself. He didn’t know whether it was the adrenaline, the fact that he was talking to Gerard, or the twelve pack he’d downed in an hour.

“Where are you? I’m going to come and talk to you.” He sounded like he was fumbling with a belt. Frank heard a grunt of frustration and then metal clanging assumedly onto the floor. 

“Don’t bother, I just need to let you know that you were everything to me. You were my most favorite person in the entire world and nothing will ever change that. I’m not letting anyone get the chance to take that title from you since no one would ever be able to properly fulfill it. No one could wear the outfit of “Frank’s most favorite person” quite like you did. You fit everything so nicely, so handsome and sweet covering me in your words of encouragement and pure help. But it's okay now. I’m going to be okay and you’re going to be okay. I’m not going to go to another therapist and you’re going to keep seeing patients like clockwork and you’ll vaguely remember the first patient you ever had who fell in love with you without so much as a second thought. I always will, Gerard. Love you, I mean. Please know that.” Frank sighed and hung up the phone. 

He threw it on the floor, breaking it so at least while he was taking his slow sweet time to go, he wouldn’t hear it ringing with Gerard trying to call him back. 

Frank grabbed the step ladder and sat the phone number paper on the floor in front of him where someone would see it. Some sort of silent soliloquy, speaking his thoughts and feelings for Gerard without actually saying them. 

And with that, he fitted himself in the suit made for death and leapt, neck feeling the blow of a love never shared, never given back, and never received as well as it should have been.

\---

Walking in on it was something he’d never imagined he’d have to do. He knew with the whole becoming a therapist thing that he was going to deal with things like this. He just didn’t want them to be inherently because of him. 

Gerard had scrounged through files that night, finding Frank Iero’s address and rushing there. Frank hadn’t even locked the front door. 

Gerard began to sob, throat closing in on itself, running to him, trying to get him down. He wasn’t something that could be put on display like that. He was just a fragile boy and Gerard had frozen up upon being told that this boy had held some kind of special spot in his heart for Gerard himself.

Gerard didn’t want to let them go. They were sentimental and held a special place deep within his very soul and at the barest minimum if someone ever asked why he still had them, he could say he was using it for a reminder that patients can’t be taken at such leisure as he’d taken Frank.

He figured he should have known Frank had some sort of BPD. He proved it with every single word he spoke and Gerard could kick himself for making Frank go through a death sentence to get his diagnosis. He’d never look at himself the same. 

Gerard showed up to the funeral and let his sentimental pieces go a week after said funeral, after they’d lowered him into the ground and propped his headstone up proudly, “Frank Anthony Iero Jr. Beloved son. May your heart finally see the light it deserved” reading peacefully on it. 

He rested the notebooks on top of the still-fresh dirt, caressing the headstone gently. 

“I brought these for you. I figured you may need them. They’re here for you if things stop being okay. I love you, Frank.” 

He would never love anyone else and god he felt stupid for saying that. He was saying it too late. Way too late. About a suicide and a funeral procession too late. 

But he knew Frank understood because a wisp of wind laid a leaf at his feet, spread out atop the notebooks. 

He knew Frank was saying he would use them when he needed them and that he appreciated Gerard for bringing them and that he knew that Gerard was sorry. 

Oh, how he was infinitely sorry. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> comments with feedback and stuff are always appreciated.  
> if you need to talk to anyone or if you wanna be in an mcr group with me, my discord tag is v1ol3nc3#3732 :)


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